Friction wheel cigarette lighter



March 5, 1968 ZAHN FRICTION WHEEL CIGARETTE LIGHTER Filed Oct. 1, 1965 IINVENTORI l/fRMAN/V Z A H N By AM A M Attorney United States Patent P 3,371,506 FRICTION WHEEL CIGARETTE LIGHTER Hermann Zahn, Gutleutstrasse 131, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Filed Oct. 1, 1965, Ser. No. 491,988 Claims priority, application Germany, Oct. 2, 1964,

1 Claim. cl. 67-7.1)

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A hinge structure for a cigarette lighter having an ex tinguishing cap carrier With walls provided with studreceiving holes and guide grooves of decreasing depth for studs on flexible press lever walls. Easy assembly is effected by sliding the studs along the grooves into engagement with the holes.

The invention relates to a smokers lighter of the kind having a friction wheel with a pivot axis common to an extinguishing cap carrier coupled with said wheel, a press lever for actuation of the lighter being linked to the extinguishing cap carrier, the rearward end of the extinguishing cap carrier being supported relative to the lighter housing by means of a strut and acted on by a closure spring. Such lighters may use petrol or gas as fuel.

The invention is concerned with the connection of the extinguishing cap carrier with the press lever and it is an object of the invention to provide a lighter in which this connection is such as to enable simple manufacture and assembly. It is a further object of the invention to provide such a lighter in which the said connection is not visible from the outside of the lighter.

It has been proposed to provide the connection between the extinguishing cap carrier and. the press lever by providing in the two side walls of the extinguishing cap carrier, two receiving openings for bearing-studs, and providing at correspondingly co-ordinated positions in the two side walls of the press lever, holes with right and left hand threads, respectively, into which after the press lever and extinguishing cap carrier have been suitably positioned, the bearing studs can be screwed with the aid of a screw driver, the bearing studs having appropriately threaded portions.

It has also been proposed to provide slots in the two side walls of the extinguishing cap carrier, which terminate above the bearing bores proper and by means of which the connection to the press lever is effected. In this case, the press lever is provided with inwardly extending studs and these are introduced into the slots as far as the bearing regions. This manner of connection is unreliable in use and can only operate satisfactorily if the press lever is moved perpendicularly towards the top of the lighter to eflfect ignition. Moreover, this manner of connection is not suitable for lighters of the above mentioned kind, since for actuating such lighters the press lever has to be pressed rearwardly while remaining parallel to the top of the lighter.

In the lighter of the present invention, the connection between the extinguishing cap carrier and the press lever is effected by inwardly extending short studs provided on the two. side walls of the press lever, which in assembly of the lighter slide along short grooves or channels provided in the side walls of the extinguishing cap carrier so as to snap into receiving holes provided therefor in the extinguishing cap carrier. The grooves are so shaped that from the ends thereof at which the studs first engage, as far as the ends thereof which border the receiving holes, the depth of the grooves 3,371,506 Patented Mar. 5, 1968 lessens. For manufacture, it is suflicient to secure two small steel studs in two aligned holes in the side walls of the press lever, for example by riveting, the studs extending inwardly, any outwardly projections thereof being levelled down. The press lever, after being anchored to the top of the lighter by a support lever and holding spring at its rearward end, is moved forwardly on the extinguishing cap carrier which has already been engaged with the friction wheel on a pivot shaft common to the friction wheel and the extinguishing cap carrier, the studs being guided along the grooves in the side walls of the extinguishing cap carrier. In doing this, side walls of the press lever are slightly sprung apart as a result of the action of the studs on the tapering groove bottoms, the side walls snapping back into their original positions as soon as the studs have pased along the full length of the grooves and encountered the stud receiving holes in the extinguishing cap carrier, the studs thus snapping into the holes which provide pivots therefor.

It will be appreciated that assembly of the lighter is accordingly very simple, without it being necessary to use studs provided with left and right hand threads, or other complicated assembly components. Moreover, by avoiding the necessity of introducing screw threaded studs after the extinguishing cap carrier and the press lever are assembled together, it can be achieved that the pivot studs are invisible from the outside of the lighter, whereas when threaded studs are used, the stud heads and the screw-driver slots therein can clearly be seen.

In order to make the invention clearly understood, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings which are given by way of example and in which:

FIG. 1 is an elevation view, partly in section, of a lighter of the invention, in the actuated position;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view to a larger scale than FIG. 1, showing a press lever and an extinguishing cap carrier of the lighter of FIG. 1; and

FIG. 3 is a plan view of the components shown in FIG. 2, with the extinguishing cap carrier in section.

The lighter comprises a housing 1 on the top of which a bearing frame 6 is fixed. The bearing frame 6 carries a pivot shaft 5 which mounts a rotatable friction wheel 4 for acting on a flint (not shown) and pivotally mounts an extinguishing cap carrier 2, having an extinguishing cap 3 which serves for snufling the lighter flame.

The extinguishing cap carrier is connected at its rearward end to a press layer 7 by a connection which will subsequently be described, the press lever 7 being supported from the top of the lighter by a strut 8 and being under the action of a closure spring 9 which normally maintains the lighter in the closed position and which returns the press lever 7 and the extinguishing cap carrier 2 to the closed positions after actuation of the lighter.

The above mentioned connection can be seen from FIGS. 2 and 3. The connection is provided by short steel studs 10 which are riveted into the two side walls of flexible material, preferably steel, of the press lever 7, so as to extend inwardly, any portions of the studs which project outwardly being ground down or so worked that no trace of the studs is visible from the outside, as evidence by FIG. 1.

The studs 10 are intended to snap into holes 11 in the cap carrier 2 on assembly of the lighter. To provide the snap action assembly, grooves 12 are machined in the two side walls of the cap carrier 2 as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the grooves 12 leading to the holes 11 but being of a depth which decreases from the end of the grooves in which the studs first engage during assembly of the lighter, that is to say the right hand end as viewed in FIG. 3.

For assembly, the press lever 7 is moved in the direction of the arrow shown in FIG. 3, onto the cap carrier 2, so that the studs 10 engage in the grooves 12 and approach the holes 11. During this movement, the studs, riding on the tapering groove bottoms, cause the side Walls of the press lever 7 to spring slightly outwardly. When the studs 10 have cleared the grooves 12 they snap into the holes 11, which provide captive pivots for the studs, the grooves 12 merely serving for facilitating assembly.

Having thus disclosed my invention, what I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States of America is:

1. In a friction wheel cigarette lighter, in combination, a lighter housing, a bearing frame secured to the top of said housing, a pivot shaft fixedly secured to said bearing frame, an extinguishing cap carrier and a friction wheel pivotable on said shaft and rotatable with said extinguishing cap, said cap carrier being formed with a pair of spaced parallel side Walls having each a stud receiving hole and a guide groove extending from an end of said wall and merging with the respective ones of said holes, said grooves being of a depth decreasing from the ends of the respective walls, a press lever having another pair of parallel spaced Walls adapted to receive said cap carrier in slidable engagement therebetween, a pair of inwardly extending studs riveted to each of said other pair of spaced walls, said studs being adapted to be received in the respective ones of said stud-receiving holes and slidable in said guide grooves, said other pair of walls being of flexible material, whereby during the assembly of the lighter by sliding the studs along in the grooves, a snap action entry of the studs into said holes is effected.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,671,329 3/1954 Zahn 677.1 2,938,227 5/1960 Lhota 16l71 3,007,328 11/1961 Zahn 677.l 3,156,756 11/1964 Seaver 16171 X FOREIGN PATENTS 586,982 4/1947 Great Britain.

EDWARD J. MICHAEL, Primary Examiner. 

